


We'll go where nobody knows

by orphan_account



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Childhood Friends, F/F, Fluff, Growing Up, yeah basically just an au where they meet at the age of nine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 21:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4682417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beca and Chloe meet at the age of nine. Well, first Beca violently meets a wall, and then she meets Chloe. It's funny how things just happen.<br/>Or the one where they grow up together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll go where nobody knows

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I'm uncertainly posting this because, truth be told, I have no clue whether I'll finish it. It just kind of depends on whether you guys like it or not really. But yeah, summers about to be over so I don't know about an update schedule yet because things are about to get hectic af. Anyway, if you like it, be sure to comment and kudos so I know whether I should bother continuing it.  
> The title is from the song Chocolate by The 1975

Beca Mitchell is not a hipster, and she never will be. She will never wear coloured jeans, she will never drink coffees that she can’t pronounce the names of, and she _most certainly_ will never wear those stupid fake glasses, no matter how many times Chloe drags her into shops and makes them try on different ones, taking selfies and pulling dumb faces at the cameras.

So no, Beca Mitchell is not a hipster, and every time someone tells her that they’ve started listening to music that she listened to _years_ ago, or a television show which Beca was obsessed with when it first came out becomes trendy, she bites her lip and swallows down the ‘I liked it before it was cool’, because she’s not going to be _that_ person.

But it still comes hand in hand with an empty feeling, lump in throat and exclusion. It still hurts.  

Beca first became aware of that particular feeling when she was nine, at Aubrey’s birthday party. She barely knew Aubrey, but Aubrey had invited all the girls in the year and Beca’s dad thought it would be good to go, to get Beca out of her shell.

Awkwardly standing, toes pointed inwards and arms in sleeves, little Beca gives Aubrey a bracelet as a birthday present, and the other girl smiles at her with a confused look, as if to say “oh sorry, I meant to invite everyone but you”.

Beca decides she doesn’t like Aubrey too much.

There are a few more gifts given, and Beca looks around for someone to sit with. Stacie perhaps, they get along well enough. Or maybe Amy, at nine years old Beca has already done a _lot_ of Amy’s homework so it’d make sense that Amy let her sit next to her, right?

However, Amy looks happy with the cake table so Beca sits alone, watching Chloe Beale, best friend of Aubrey, step up to give her gift. Unwrapping the present, Aubrey squeals, throwing her arms around Chloe. She then holds out her arm and Beca watches as Chloe, smiling widely, puts a bracelet on Aubrey’s wrist. The _exact same bracelet_ that Beca had given.

And it wasn’t like Beca had put much thought into the gift, it wasn’t like Beca actually liked Aubrey, it wasn’t that Beca _wanted_ to come, it was just… she had received a glare and a look and Chloe had received a hug and _it wasn’t fair._

The monster in Beca’s stomach wakes from its slumber and claws its way up to her throat, blocking her windpipe. Angrily, Beca gets up and, determined to sit as far away from Aubrey as possible, turns around and storms… straight into a wall.

Recoiling with shock, the monster sinks back to the pit of her stomach. “Poo!” Beca growls, holding her nose. “Stupid wall!” She kicks the wall, resulting in a throbbing toe. “Ouch.” Grabbing her toe, Beca slumps down against the wall, tears leaking out of her eyes now.

“Did you just walk into a wall?” Comes an amused voice.

Glaring up at the speaker, Beca is met with the intrigued face of Chloe Beale. “It walked into me.”

“Hey.” Chloe moves forwards to sit down next to Beca. She touches Beca’s face, which is wet from tears. “Are you crying?”

“No I’m allergic to Aubrey.” Beca has a sharp tongue, that’s what her dad says. Her dad also says that he doesn’t know where she got it from, but Beca has seen him talking to some of his misbehaving students and she knows exactly where it came from.  

To Beca’s surprise, Chloe laughs. “Aubrey is my best friend, but I can see why you’re allergic to her.” She grabs Beca’s hand and Beca spots the bracelet she gave Aubrey on Chloe’s wrist.

“Hey” Beca points. “Where did you get that?”

“Oh.” Excitedly, Chloe sits up a little bit straighter. “I gave one to Aubrey for her birthday and she pulled out this matching one and now we have friendship bracelets!”

A sinking feeling takes over Beca. “Oh… I gave that to Aubrey.”

Pursing her lips, Chloe looks at Beca with the most serious expression that a nine year old can pull. “You can have it back if you want.”

“No.” Beca shakes her head. “Keep it, at least it’s good for something.”

“Here.” Chloe murmurs. Softly, she grabs Beca’s face and brings it towards her, kissing each cheek. “My mommy always says that you should kiss the tears away, it’s what she does for me.”

“Thanks.” Beca smiles, and she really does mean it because she can still feel where Chloe’s lips touched her cheeks. “Your mommy sounds nice.”

“Yes she’s amazing!” Chloe gushes. “Me, Dylan, he’s my big brother, pops and mommy all do singing and baking, and sometimes pops picks me up and puts me on his shoulders. And Dylan is fifteen and so tall but he’s gentle, like a giraffe. And mommy has the best voice in the entire world.” Chloe laughs. “What’s your mommy like.”

“I don’t know.” Beca looks down. “She went away a long time ago, dad says she might not come back.”

There’s a silence before Chloe smiles again. “Well what’s you dad like?”

Smiling, Beca imagines her dad. “He’s super lame and goofy, but I love him and he teaches me things and lets me stay up to watch films with him and he always give me the bigger piece of cake when we have it.”

“He sounds awesome!” Chloe smiles. “Talking about cake…” Nudging Beca, Chloe nods towards the cake table, where Aubrey appears to be lecturing Amy about how many slice of cake is appropriate for one person.

“I can already sense that we’re going to be friends.” Beca smiles, as Chloe pulls her up.

“Not just friends.” Chloe grins, hugging Beca. “Best friends.”

*

Beca starts playing guitar before it becomes a craze. She’s ten and Chloe plays the piano and Stacie plays the drums. So when Chloe comes up to Beca with begging blue eyes and a jutted out lip, saying how if Beca learned how to play the guitar then they’d all be good enough to have a band in a few years, Beca can’t refuse.

She likes music anyway.

They’ve been friends for around a year now. Beca refuses to call it ‘best friends’ because Chloe still hangs out with Aubrey and Beca has Benji, which means she has Jesse too, and actually Beca is ten years old now, so she’s too old to be using babyish phrases like ‘best friends’.

Chloe on the other hand, refers to them as best friends on a daily basis. When Beca tells her it’s “not cool anymore Chlo,” Chloe just laughs and says that not having a best friend is less cool. When Beca asks “If I’m your best friend then what about Aubrey”, Chloe smiles and says people can have more than one best friend. It all sounds very weird to Beca, but if being Chloe Beale’s best friend means they can share lunch and have sleepovers every weekend, she’s not going to object.

This means that, naturally, when Chloe bounces up to her, eyes wide and ever present smile glued to her face, rattling on about music and harmonizing and whatever the hell a pentatonic scale is, Beca _just has to_ learn the guitar for her.

It’s what friends do.

(So maybe there are plenty of blisters on her fingers for a while and maybe sometimes she strains her wrists trying to reach certain frets, but Chloe _is_ her best friend. Even if she’s to cool to use the term.)

Much to the exasperation of her dad, Beca stays up all the way to ten o clock the night before Chloe’s birthday, learning how to play happy birthday on the guitar and sing so her voice matches the sound of the strumming strings. Making his way upstairs to tell Beca to go to sleep, her dad opens the door and smiles at his sheepish daughter, making a joke rather than telling her off and then sitting on the bed with her and crooning out his very own happy birthday verse as she plays. Afterwards, he kisses her softly on the top of the head and tells her to get some rest. 

The next morning Beca is tired, but it is washed away with excitement as she throws her second hand guitar in its case and rushes round to Chloe’s house.

Chloe’s older brother Dylan opens the door, he is sixteen now and has the same colour eyes as Chloe, but his hair is blonder and Chloe’s mom always jokes that it’s because he drank bleach as a child. “Chloe!” Dylan calls, but he barely gets the name out before he is knocked out the way by a blur of ginger.

“Becs!” Chloe grins, knocking the air out of Beca with a hug.

“Happy birthday Chlo.” Beca hugs her friend back, being careful not to knock her guitar. “You’re eleven now.”

“Yeah!” Chloe’s eyes light up. “Mommy and Pops got me new sneakers for my birthday!” She holds her leg up into the air and shows Beca the clean, bright pink shoes on her feet.

“They’re so cool!” Beca enthuses.

Chloe gives her a weird look. “Come on Beca, I know you’d only like them if they were grey or black or some other boring colour.”

“I think they’re awesome.” Beca insists. “Can we go inside?”

Behind Chloe, Dylan chuckles, watching the two girls interact with amused eyes. Turning around to glare at her brother, Chloe answers Beca. “Yeah we could, if Dylan’s fat butt wasn’t in the way.”

“Hey now.” Dylan holds up his hands, stepping to the side. “Just because it’s your birthday doesn’t mean you can be rude.”

“I’m rude to you every day, Dyl.” Chloe giggles.

Fondly ruffling his sister’s hair, Dylan smiles. “And I still love you, because I am the best big brother ever.”

Rolling her eyes, Chloe grabs Beca’s hand and leads her into the kitchen, where her parents are having a conversation. “Oh hey Beca!” Chloe’s mom smiles. “What are you doing here?”

“She’s here to see Chloe obviously.” Chloe’s dad grins at Beca.

“Oh and there I was thinking she was here to see us.” Much similarly to her daughter just a few seconds ago, Chloe’s mom rolls her eyes, pulling Chloe’s dad in for a quick peck on the cheek.

It’s strange that, in Beca’s house, eye rolls mean _‘oh no not spaghetti again for dinner’_ and _‘Beca Mitchell why did you leave your homework to the last minute’,_ whereas in Chloe’s house eye rolls always seem to convey ‘ _I think you’re an idiot but I still love you’._

Beca prefers rolling her eyes at Chloe’s house.

“Of course I’m here to see you, Ms Beale.” Beca grins across at Chloe’s mom, throwing in a wink as she does.

“You’re such a charmer Becs.” Chloe giggles from beside her.

Chloe’s mom laughs. “Beca, you can call me Jess, you know that right?”

Sticking her tongue out between her teeth, Beca hesitates. “It just feels weird calling an adult by their first name.”

“Beca doesn’t have a mommy,” Chloe states, not rudely but surely, turning to Beca. “You could call her mom. I don’t mind.”

“But she’s not my mom.” Beca smiles, shoving Chloe’s arm. “She’s _your_ mom.”

“Beca I can be like your mom, but I won’t actually ever be your mom. You could call me Auntie?”

Shaking her head, Beca smiles politely. “I’ll just call you Jess.”

Chloe’s dad claps his hands together. “Right, now that that’s settled. How about cake?”

“Not yet.” Chloe bounces up to her dad and hugs his legs. “Beca has her guitar!”

“Uh yeah.” Beca coughs awkwardly. “I learnt how to play something for your birthday.”

Pulling her guitar out of its case, Beca shuffles so that she can sit with it on her lap. The guitar itself is a little too big for her, so that it cuts into her legs and her arms strain and dangle so they just reach the strings. Hesitantly, she starts playing. Music fills the room and the Beale family watch in silent wonder at Beca.

“Happy birthday to you.” Beca finishes off quietly.

“That was amazing Becs.” Chloe sniffles, and Beca puts down her guitar, moving towards Chloe with concern.

“Do you want me to kiss the tears away?”

“No,” Chloe smiles. “They’re good tears. I don’t want them to go away.”

*

Beca picks up windsurfing at the age of eleven, after the summer has rolled by and she and Chloe have started middle school. She’s a little too short to manage the sail, and sometimes she doesn’t have enough strength to pull it out of the water, but she enjoys it.

There’s a little lake on the outskirts of their town, that’s a nature reserve but also an outdoor sports centre and she goes there almost every weekend. Sometimes Chloe comes too, harbouring a love for sailing and rambling on about picos and fevas and tacks and jives and the two girls spend hours out on the lake together.

Soon Beca has calloused hands and sore arms but she loves the way the sail catches the wind at certain points and how the lake laps under the board when she picks up speed. The first time she uses a harness, the wind pulls her and she trapezes into the sail, earning a sprained wrist and a lungful of lake water. 

Expertly, Chloe sails over, asking Beca if she’s okay with a voice full of concern. Beca nods and pulls herself back up onto the board. Taking a moment to rest, she stands up slowly, grabbing the mast and pulling herself up so she’s standing, before pulling the boom in tight and sailing off again.

That’s the trick to windsurfing, you just have to keep on getting up.

Beca works out early on that that’s the trick to a lot of things in life. Middle school, for example.

Middle school is bigger than her elementary school was, with more people. Everyone’s having sleepovers all the time and Beca doesn’t think she can sit through another ‘who do you fancy’ session when all _she_ wants to talk about is guitar, windsurfing and Chloe Beale.

There are also other problems with it, like new people and unfamiliar teachers and _more_ homework that before. Beca doesn’t like it very much, she’s never been too accustomed to change.

 _Chloe_ , on the other hand, _loves_ it. She’s the type of person who thrives in social situations, everybody loves Chloe and Chloe loves everybody. It’s that simple. 

But it’s all fine because Beca also has sleepovers with _just_ Chloe, which are way better because Beca laughs her way through them, and they spend their weekends cycling to the lake or lying in the sun or having water fights.

*

Beca’s never really been bothered by the absence of her mom. At the age of twelve, she has concluded that her mom must have been really terrible anyway, so there’s not much to miss.

But her dad keeps on spending more time away from home and, as much as she loves him, Beca’s tired of coming home to notes with ‘dinner’s in the microwave’ written on them.

She stopped eating microwaved dinner after the fifth time it happened, instead going round to Chloe’s house for dinner.

It’s not even that her dad’s gone out to work. There’s a woman, Shelby or Sharon or something like that, who he goes out with, leaving Beca at home to fend for herself.

Beca shouldn’t be bitter, her dad has always been there for her. They go to amusement parks together and he puts up with Beca’s sarcastic commentary every time they watch a movie. He’ll always buy them a treat on the way home from work on Fridays too, and Beca looks forwards to finding out what it is and eating it together and talking about everything.

Maybe her dad deserves someone to be there for him now.

(Beca always thought that they were enough, partners in crime. They’d made it this far together so surely they could make it further.)

She shouldn’t be bitter, but she is.

Because this _Sheila_ woman is in the way now, of Friday night treats and movie watching. She is in the way of Beca coming home to a hug and an interest in her day, rather than four empty walls and congealed lasagne.

Beca already hates Sheila, and she hasn’t even met her yet.

When she does eventually meet her, it’s almost the end of the school year. Beca and Chloe always walk home together, avoiding the cracks on the sidewalk and racing to any destination that one of them shouts.  This time, it’s the lamppost, and Beca puffs out hot air as she pumps her legs to try and beat Chloe, but Chloe yanks her backpack and they both fall tumbling to the ground a few feet short of their destination.

“Damn it Beale!” Beca yells, muffled from where she’s lying under a giggling Chloe.

Sitting up, Chloe brushes herself off. “Well I couldn’t let you win, could I?”

“That’s the whole point of the game.” Beca rolls her eyes, but it’s filled with jest.

“Yeah well,” Chloe grins, standing up. “If you won, the game wouldn’t be fun anymore.”

“You are the worst best friend ever!” Beca huffs, letting herself be helped up off of the ground.

Once she’s up, Chloe doesn’t let go of her hand, instead pulling her closer. “Finally you admit that we’re best friends!”

“Yeah well,” Beca jests. “Stacie said she was too busy so you’re my second choice.”

Gasping, Chloe shoves Beca back. “Beca Mitchell! You are a lying scoundrel. I was your first choice.”

Giving in, Beca takes Chloe’s hand again. “Yeah,” She smiles. “Okay.”

“Cool.” Chloe beams back at Beca. “Can I have my hand back?”

“Nope.” Popping the ‘p’, Beca smirks before breaking out into a sprint, dragging Chloe along with her.

“Becaaaaa!” Chloe screams. “You’re going to pull my arm off!”

Slowing, Beca turns to face her friend. “That’s impossible Chlo. Just because you’re not as fast as me…” She sticks out her tongue.

Narrowing her eyes, Chloe challenges. “Fine. We’ll race back to your house.”

Crossing her arms, Beca nods. “Fine.”

“Okay…” Chloe tenses, like a cat ready to pounce. “3, 2, 1 go!” She shouts, quickly running off and giving herself a head start.

“Not fair!” Laughs Beca, running after her.

Of course Chloe makes it to Beca’s door first, but it doesn’t matter because by the time they get there, they’re both breathless and laughing.

“I demand a rematch.” Beca pants.

“You’re ready to lose all over again?”

“Hmm.” Beca hums. “We’ll see.”

“Okay.” Giving Beca a sweaty hug, Chloe pulls back and smiles. “If you’re dads not back just come round mine for dinner okay?”

“Like usual.” Beca grins. “See you Chlo.”

“Bye Beca.” Chloe calls, walking away. “Love you bestie.”

“Whatever, you’re still my second choice.” Beca yells, and then, as a guilty afterthought she adds. “But yeah, I love you too or whatever.”

Before she turns back around to face her front door, Beca catches Chloe smile. A bubbly feeling in her throat and chest, Beca opens the door, expecting to enter a silent building but instead hearing voices.

Unfamiliar voices.

“Hello…?” She calls into the house, which is probably a bad idea because she and Chloe spent a night watching horror films and that is what all the victims do.

(Neither of them slept for a week after that night and when Chloe’s mom found them the next morning, still wide awake, clutching each other in the corner of the room, she attempted to scold them for watching films they weren’t supposed to, before giving into pity and making them hot chocolate to calm them down.)

“Beca!” Her dad comes into the room. Immediately, Beca senses something is wrong. She hasn’t seen her dad properly in at least a week, and now he is being uncharacteristically nice, his usual greeting hug instead a big sweeping bear hug which lasts for way too long.

“Dad?” Beca mumbles, slowly suffocating in her father’s chest.

Putting his daughter down, Beca’s dad clears his throat, awkwardly shuffling back. “Um Beca,” He straightens his tie. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

As he says it, a woman walks into the room from the kitchen. She’s tall, probably about 5’9’’, with dark hair and dark eyes and a nervous smile flitting across her face. Bending down, so she is at Beca’s height, the woman sticks out her hand. “Hi sweetie, I’m Sheila.”

Beca feels her stomach churn angrily, and she swallows down the rising lump in her throat. Taking Sheila’s hand, she speaks through gritted teeth. “Beca.”

Sheila doesn’t back off though, instead staying at Beca’s eye level, smile plastically plastered onto her face now. “Your dad has told me all about you.”

“That’s strange.” Beca spits. “He didn’t even tell me you were coming today.” She glares at her dad, who gulps. “I _assumed_ I’d be eating dinner alone again.”

“Becs…” Her dad starts. “I am sorry about leaving you to fend for yourself, but I thought we were growing up now.”

“No!” Beca shouts, grabbing her coat. Tears prickle at her eyes, “You _made_ me grow up, I never wanted to!”

“We all have to grow up one day, B-”

Interrupting him, Beca throws open the front door. “I’m going to eat dinner at Chloe’s.”

“Rebecca!” Her dad shouts, but Beca has already slammed the door.

*

Chloe Beale loves poetry.

It would be a subject that Beca could completely torment her about, but she doesn’t. Because Chloe has always loved poetry, from their first sleepover to their latest.

It’s funny though, because usually a thirteen year old would moan and groan when it came to being read poetry by their best friend, but Beca doesn’t mind it too much. She likes sitting on a couch, snuggled up into some pillows with her legs thrown over Chloe’s and watching her friend’s lips move as she reads the words. Counting the freckles on Chloe’s face is also a habit that Beca has. If she was as good with words as Chloe Beale, she might say that the freckles were a nebula, exploding across Chloe’s cheeks in dancing patterns.

But she tends to leave the words to Chloe.

Because she loves the way that Chloe’s eyes light up as she cracks open a book and reads a poem. Loves the way that her voice fills with so much emotion at a few lines.

So yes, Beca could make fun of Chloe for liking poetry, but she prefers watching the passion flow from Chloe’s every pore as she reads.

It’s one of those moments again, where Chloe has just finished reading and Beca is hypnotised into a trance. Thick air surrounds them, heavy with the last syllable of Chloe’s voice and Beca feels her heart rise to her throat as it always does in these moments. Looking up, Chloe smiles. “That’s my favourite at the moment.”

She expects Beca to say something here, perhaps comment on the rhyming pattern or the imagery as she would in school, but Beca can barely force words through the thickness in her throat. “It’s great Chlo.”

Smiling again, Chloe lights up like spotlight at the words, reading between the lines as she has always been able to do with Beca. “You liked it?”

“Loved it.” Beca lives for these moments, where her legs are warm from resting on Chloe and Chloe smile softly as she slowly rests her head against the back of the couch, looking at Beca with so much thankfulness in her eyes, as if she is saying “Thank you for being my friend, and listening to me babble on about things I know you don’t care about. I’m glad we have each other.”

Perfection comes in these moments, as if the couch is suddenly in a different universe where only they exist. It makes Beca want to say “Of course I’m your friend and I care about anything that you care about because I’m glad it makes you happy. We will always have each other.”

*

By the time she’s thirteen, Beca has come to a stalemate with her dad. Sheila just kind of floats around the house, like a human embodiment of Switzerland, whilst Beca and her dad communicate with glances and glares.

Sheila hasn’t moved in yet, but she usually comes round for dinner and the deal is that Beca eats with Sheila two nights a week, and then can do whatever she wants for the rest of the week.

This is how Beca’s relationship with her dad slowly crumbles.

This is how Jess Beale slowly becomes Beca’s mother.

Now, Beca’s thirteen and smart for age, due to reading and her weird fascination with the discovery channel. She knows that, technically, there is no conceivable way that Jess Beale could be her mother, but that’s not how Beca means it. She means it in a love way rather than a blood way. Jess Beale is Beca’s mother in the way she always tucks her in and kisses her goodnight when she and Chloe have sleepovers. She is her mother in the way she hugs Beca when she’s sad, rubbing her back and letting her cry. She is her mother in the way she picks Beca and Chloe up from school in the car sometimes, driving them to a café on the way home, giggling and the three of them belting out the tunes on the radio as loud as they can.

So no, Jess Beale is not Beca’s birth mother, but she is the best mother Beca has ever had.

Beca starts her period when she’s thirteen. She’s had sex education and she knows what’s happening, but when she wakes up in the middle of the night, with a stomach ache and warm wet feeling between her legs, it still sends her into a panic.

The first thing that goes through her mind is that she’s _thirteen._ (But that’s perfectly normal right, her brain reminds her, just because Chloe hasn’t started yet doesn’t mean she’s weird. Breath Beca, breathe.)

The second thing that goes through her mind is that she has white sheets. (Crap, oh crap, crap. Her Dad’s going to find out, she can’t hide this. He’ll ask questions, he’ll try to give her the talk again.)

The third and final thing that goes through her mind is that her dad has _no idea what he’s doing._ (This is going to be awkward for both of them.)

Before she even knows what she’s doing, Beca shoves some toilet paper in her underwear and leaves the house, ignoring all the nagging voices in her head about walking alone at night and heading straight for Chloe’s house.

Needless to say, when Jess Beale is woken at one in the morning by a panicking Beca Mitchell in tears on her doorstep, she can’t even be exasperated.

Instead, she cleans Beca up and sorts her out and then, quietly, they tiptoe into Chloe’s room, where Beca slips under the covers with Chloe and Jess kisses her softly on the forehead.

“I’ll call your dad in the morning, goodnight Beca.”  

“Goodnight mom.” Beca speaks softly, already feeling tiredness wash over her. Oblivious to her slip of the tongue, Beca rolls over, only to be greeted by Chloe’s grabby hands and entangling legs. She falls asleep in her best friend’s arms.

From the doorway, Jess smiles softly, the yellowy hall light crating shadows across her face. Slowly, she turns around and closes the door.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm going to tag this GUAU on my tumblr, so if you want to come discuss ideas/headcanons, or just scream endlessly, come find me at piegodess.tumblr.com


End file.
